The Debt is a Wobbling House of Cards

Townhall.com ^ | February 15, 2020 | Dan Celia

[LumberJack53213]

That’s what history has shown. That’s when my actual AR15 comes in handy.

[Poison Pill]

That’s when my actual AR15 comes in handy.

Nah, you lost that in a boating accident......remember?

[trebb]

When things didn’t fall apart after all the predictions during Obama’s reign of terror and excess, I’m thinking the danger isn’t as dire as we think.

I hate that our government has run up so much debt but the world seems embroiled in the same situation and the world is probably “too big to fail”...Trump’s work on trade deals probably also have the effect of insulating us more than much of the world.

I cringe as I read my words because they seem to make no sense but there are probably forces we little people are not privy to. (Been reading some Ludlum and other novels that talk of cabals/consortiums that run the machinery of Capitalism and some of the theories seem to make too much sense.

[Jarhead9297]

Some place out unfunded liabilities at 300-400 trillion. We are doomed

[babble-on]

I worry less about unfunded liabilities, because many of those are truly theoretical. But the negative cash flow on Social Security and Medicare has to be funded over the next 30 years, and that is going to be a lot of debt to auction.

[PeterPrinciple]

In other words, in order to make our debt cheaper, we will need to devalue the dollar. But here’s the problem with that approach. If we devalue the dollar and we are no longer the strongest currency in the world, all while paying little to no interest growing debt, how will we ever get people to buy our debt to fund it if our currency is no more attractive than anybody else’s?

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A few thoughts:

1) Yes, we have a crappy situation, but it is the BEST crappy situation in the world. The dollar is relatively the best in teh world.

2) What is our biggest expense? interest rates. They canna go up. that is why Trump is fighting the fed on interest
rates.

3) I refer all to God’s plan for this situation, the year of jubilee.

4) In our lifetime there has been a major world power that went bankrupt. What happened? It will be the same but different for the next world power.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Debt will never be paid.

It will be renounced or paid off with other debt.

It has always been such among the nations.

[PeterPrinciple]

I think Trump understands better than this idiot writer. The reality is that we will never balance our budget or pay off our debt.

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Trump has been through bankruptcies. There are some things you are in controll of and other things your are not in controll of. But life does go on after bankruptcy.

I have watched/been involved with many personal/business bankruptcies. It is an interesting study.

[Will88]

This week the CBO announced that for the first four months of the government’s fiscal year ending in January we had created a deficit of $1.2 trillion.

It's certainly bad enough, but a $1.2 trillion deficit was not created during the first four months of the fiscal year. The deficit for four months was $389 billion and then they annualized it and attributed the annual amount to the first four months of the fiscal year.

[PeterPrinciple]

some of the theories seem to make too much sense.

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and then there is the “ Invisible Hand” as discussed by Adam Smith. It is very hard to control complex things but you can for A WHILE.

[central_va]

There is still time to save the US economy. All we need is a 20% uniform across the board import tariff. Do it.

[oincobx]

We are over $20T in debt and the government can still borrow for 10 years at about 1.6%. The market doesn’t seem to be that concerned about repayment yet.

[Poison Pill]

I worry less about unfunded liabilities, because many of those are truly theoretical.

The Feds are going to have to backstop a TON of non Federal debt. Chicago alone has more unfunded pension liability than 44 States.

[trebb]

Agree - there are too many unseen forces driving world economics...the fact that so many PACS/Lobbying Groups have so much sway with our willing “representatives”, who seem to get so dang rich with so little actual visible resources available to them is a sure sign.....the sudden consumerism boom after WWII may have resulted from a consolidation of many forces of well-placed “Titans of Industry”.

[LumberJack53213]

As a family or individual the only thing you can control is your own debt which can be crippling and unforgiving. We all only have a finite number of days, seconds on this planet and we cannot control the direction of our economy and country. But we can control our own destiny. Live frugally, get up every morning with a smile and work your tail off like you needed to put that meal on the table.

[trebb]

Agreed - that’s how the wife and I managed to retire when each of us reached 62...never took a loan we didn’t need (house or car) and never used credit cards for something we couldn’t afford to pay cash for so we paid the bill in full every month.
We were frugal with the few vacations we took and can afford more than we take now.

[LumberJack53213]

That is the ticket. I am a few years behind you and still working(I like my job and work) but live the same way. Heck, I need a ‘new’ car and I am looking for something with 100,000 miles on it and in the $5k range so I can pay cash!

[palmer]

The problem described in the article is government spending.

[daniel1212]

Supplemental:

Justin Bogie and Adam Michel at The Daily Signal find: The government’s debt actually consists of two components:

Its public, or marketable, debt (treasury notes, bonds and bills) is held by investors outside the federal government. These include individuals, corporations, the Federal Reserve System and foreign, state and local governments.

The second component is intra-government debt in non-marketable securities. These are held in government accounts such as the Social Security Trust Fund but owed to program beneficiaries. In other words, it is money borrowed by the federal government from itself, but which it eventually, by law, must pay back to its citizens.

the average American household forks over more than $26,000 to the feds each year. Last year, Washington collected more than $3.3 trillion in taxes.

health entitlements—Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare—and Social Security are the largest and fastest growing programs. ...Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare subsidies account for more than a quarter (28.8%) of all federal spending. Ten years from now, they’re projected to gobble up more than a third of the budget...

Meanwhile, Social Security, the single largest federal program, accounts for roughly a quarter of all federal spending all by itself. unless Congress implements much-needed reforms, the program will run out of reserve funds by 2034, potentially triggering a 23% cut in benefits.

Over the coming decade, U.S. debt held by the public is projected to balloon to nearly 93% of gross domestic product. But don’t blame that on “inadequate taxation.” By 2024, the pro-growth tax enacted in 2017 will actually raise more revenue yearly than the old system. In 1 Chart, How Your Taxes Are Spent

[Jeff Chandler]

The Jews have it right.

Which Jews? They can't all be right.